1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring system for watching moving trouble of boards to be worked (hereinafter referred to as work boards) and to a recording medium, and in particular, to moving trouble monitoring system for work boards wherein the moving condition of boards to be transferred from one place to another during the working process of boards such as building boards is watched to see if there is any moving trouble of boards, and if any moving trouble of boards is happened to be generated, the trouble is immediately detected and informed through the monitoring system thereby enabling the trouble to be suitably remedied. The present invention also relates to a medium to be employed in the monitoring system.
2. Description of the Related Arts
In the conventional continuous manufacturing and working line of building boards such as the coating line of building boards, work boards are placed into the line one by one in a predetermined cycle so as to successively execute required treatments thereof including a pretreatment, a main treatment, a post-treatment, etc., thereby obtaining the finished product of boards. Thereafter, the finished boards are further subjected to an inspection procedure before the finished boards are packed into a unit comprising several pieces of the finished boards and then discharged from the line for the preparation of shipment thereof (or for the storage thereof in a store house).
These working processes are generally constructed in such a manner that some of sequential working steps are linked to or combined with each other in the manufacturing and working line of building boards. Therefore, if any one of these combined working processes which are sequentially linked to each other is failed to be normally executed, it is impossible to obtain the finished boards. This kind of trouble in the production process is peculiar to the aforementioned continuous production system.
In the aforementioned continuous production system, these combined working processes are linked all together by means of a transferring line through which these work boards are transferred, and a large number of these work boards are intermittently placed one by one into the manufacturing and working line, thereby allowing these work boards to individually move along the manufacturing and working line. As these work boards move passing through working positions which are intermittently and sequentially positioned along the manufacturing and working line, these work boards are sequentially subjected to each working process which is specific to each working position in the line.
To improve the productivity, two or more of the aforementioned manufacturing and working lines are often installed parallel with each other.
As for the moving means (transferring means) of work boards which is installed contiguously throughout the manufacturing and working line thereby connecting the working positions with each other, a roller conveyor or a tape conveyor is extensively employed. The transferring system of this kind functions effectively as a transferring means for the work boards in a situation where the positional accuracy of the moving boards is not so stringent. For example, there are many cases which require to change the moving direction of work boards in relative to the layout of the plant. If the moving direction of work boards is required to be changed, it is generally controlled such that the movement of the moving boards is temporarily stopped at the position where the moving direction of work boards is required to be changed, and immediately after which, the moving of work boards is resumed. In this case, the working boards are frequently subjected to a varying speed control of: decelerating movementxe2x86x92stopxe2x86x92accelerating movementxe2x86x92uniform velocity movement. Further, when an average working speed is increased in this case to as high as 60 m/min. For instance, various trouble phenomena such as the vibration or slippage of the work boards may be caused to generate during the moving thereof. It is certainly meaningless under such relatively rough moving conditions to try to improve the accuracy of the moving position of work boards. Namely, if only the transfer of work boards from one place to another is intended, the accuracy of the moving position of work boards may not be required to be stringent.
Even in such a case as mentioned above, unless work boards are transferred with a certain accuracy along a predetermined moving route thereof, there would be much possibility that the moving trouble of work boards such as the snaking or collision of work boards, or in the worst case, a fatal trouble such as the falling of work boards from the transferring line may be caused to generate.
If such trouble situation as mentioned above is caused to generate, the trouble situation should be immediately detected and any suitable countermeasures should be immediately taken so as to remedy the trouble situation. However, if the discovery of the trouble situation is retarded, the damage resulting from such trouble situation would be gradually magnified in proportion to the retardation of the discovery. This kind of trouble in relative to the moving trouble of work boards is peculiar to the aforementioned continuous production system.
To cope with the aforementioned accidents, most of the manufacturing and working lines of continuous production system, irrespective of the products to be worked therein, are constructed such that a monitoring TV camera is installed at every key points of the manufacturing and working line so as to always watch the line in the monitoring field of the camera to see if there is or is not any trouble in the moving of the pieces of work boards to be treated, the scenes taken by the TV camera being always displayed in a remote control chamber or in a management room, thereby supervising the manufacturing and working line.
However, in spite of the fact that the scenes displayed in the monitoring TV represent the real-time situations of the key points, there is much possibility that the generation of trouble in the moving of the pieces of work boards is inadvertently overlooked by a person in charge unless the scene displayed in the monitoring TV is very carefully watched.
It is quite conceivable that the picture displayed in a monitoring TV is quite monotonous to the eyes of the person in charge thereof. More specifically, a monitoring TV camera takes the picture of the same scene all the time, so that the monitoring work to carefully watch the display screen for a long time for finding any generation of trouble in the moving of the pieces of work boards, which probability being generally extremely low, is a heavy burden on the person in charge thereof. Namely, since there is little change in the displayed picture of the scene as long as the working line is normally operated, it is quite conceivable that the picture displayed in a monitoring TV is quite monotonous in image to the eyes of the person in charge thereof.
The present invention has been made under the aforementioned circumstances, and therefore an object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring system for watching moving trouble of work boards, which is capable of informing a person in charge of any moving trouble of boards immediately after it is generated in the continuous production line, and at the same time, capable of displaying a monitored picture which is modified into a special picture through the processing of the real picture taken by a TV camera, thereby preventing the picture from becoming monotonous to the person in charge of watching the monitored picture and enabling the person in charge to quite easily recognize and confirm the situation on the production line. A further object of the present invention is to provide a recording medium to be employed in the aforementioned moving trouble monitoring system.
Namely, according to the present invention, there is provided moving trouble monitoring system for work boards, which comprises a TV camera for photographing a moving scene of work boards, and a display device for displaying an image signal of the moving scene of work boards taken by the TV camera, which is featured in that said system further comprises an image processing means for replacing at least a portion of said image signal of the moving scene of work boards by a predetermined first color image signal.
If the aforementioned xe2x80x9cat least a portion of said image signal of the moving scene of work boardsxe2x80x9d is constituted by a profile of the work boards, the profile of the work boards can be made more distinctive as it is colored with orange color for instance, and at the same time, the pattern of the work boards can be also displayed.
Further, if the aforementioned image processing means is constructed to enable it to determine whether or not an input image signal derived is originated from the work boards on the basis of the magnitude of difference between the input signal and a background image signal prepared in advance, the work boards can be enabled to be detected in the form of a simple construction.
Additionally, if the aforementioned system is further provided with trouble detecting means for detecting that said first color image signal is existing in a predetermined region, and with an alarm means for informing trouble if any on the basis of a detection output from said trouble detecting means, the off-course of work boards out of predetermined moving control zone can be detected and informed of.
Further, if the aforementioned image processing means is constructed to enable an image signal of aforementioned predetermined region to be replaced by a predetermined second color image signal (for example, the moving control lines are displayed by yellow), the trouble in moving of work boards can be easily detected by simply watching the display device.
Furthermore, if the aforementioned system is further provided with trouble detecting means for detecting that a pair of neighboring first color image signals have approached to each other within a predetermined distance on the display screen, and with an alarm means for informing trouble if any on the basis of a detection output from said trouble detecting means, the approaching of neighboring work boards can be detected and informed of.
If the aforementioned image processing means is constructed such that the display screen is partitioned into two regions, i.e., a first region and a second region, and that an image signal in the first region is replaced by a third color image signal, while the brightness of image signal in the second region is suppressed (for example, stationary portions are displayed in green, while animation regions are displayed with a suppressed brightness), the first color image signal of the work boards can be intensified.
There is also provided by the present invention a recording medium which is readable by a computer and stores therein a program for enabling the computer to function as an image processing means of the moving trouble monitoring system.
The specification includes part or all of the contents disclosed in the specification and/or drawings of Japanese Patent Application No. 10-363850, which is a priority application of the present application.